


Runed

by karrahbear



Series: Malec Drabbles [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 09:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10274048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrahbear/pseuds/karrahbear
Summary: Alec gets asked about runes he doesn't have.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd. All mistakes are my own.

“Who gave you the new rune?”

Jace’s question surprises Alec.

“What are you talking about?”

“The new rune you’ve got on your back. Right here,” Jace says, poking at a spot on the lower left side of Alec’s back.

Alec twitches away from his finger, Jace’s playful jab hitting a particularly ticklish spot on his ribs. Jace’s face brightens and a sly grin spreads across it. Alec frowns. He knows that grin.

“I forgot,” the blond says, feigning nonchalance, “just how ticklish you are.”

At the last word, Jace leaps over the locker room bench and grabs Alec by the ribs, digging his fingers into his parabatai’s sides. Alec twists and jerks, struggling to free himself, and snorts in an attempt to keep himself from laughing. He manages to get away, but he’s only in his underwear, so he can’t leave the locker room, and before long, Jace has him cornered.

“No! No! Wait – wait – “

Alec’s pleading falls on deaf ears as Jace launches himself at his friend. Alec tries to resist, but they’ve been friends and brothers for too long and in less than a minute, Jace has Alec in tears. 

When Jace’s attack lets up, Alec is doubled over against the lockers, hands on his knees, gasping. His abs are weak and sore from laughing.

“You,” he tells Jace between deep lungfuls of air, “are an evil, evil man.”

His friend just grins at him, eyes twinkling, and runs a hand through his hair.

* * *

“Is that one of Clary’s new runes?” Isabelle asks.

“What?” Alec says, nocking another arrow and taking aim at the demons running down the alley below them.

“This rune,” she answers, tapping the back of his neck with a long fingernail.

Alec shrugs her finger off.

“Quit, I can’t aim with you doing that.”

Izzy removes her hand and Alec lets the arrow fly. It sinks home in the base of a demon’s neck. Alec shoots three more before the fray becomes too thick and he’s forced to sling his bow over his shoulder, unsheathe an angel blade and join the fight more intimately.

“I’ve never seen it before.”

Alec glances incredulously at his sister, who wants to continue the conversation even while she’s got her whip wrapped around a demon’s neck. He turns back around in time to avoid a poisonous barbed tail and impale the owner of said tail.

As they’re trudging back towards the Institute later that night, ichor dripping from their armor and blades, Izzy brings it up again.

“It’s really cool. What does it do?”

Alec is exhausted, he smells like demon, and all he wants is a nice long nap; he’s not in the mood to play along.

“Stop it,” he grumbles, picking up his pace.

“Oh come on, big brother. What does it do?”

“Not what it’s supposed to do, apparently.”

“Which is…”

“Get rid of annoying younger sisters.”

Isabelle huffs indignantly and mutters something uncomplimentary about older brothers, but she doesn’t ask him about the imaginary rune again.

* * *

“Have you always had that?”

Clary’s staff is pointing to the back of Alec’s right arm. 

“Had what?” Alec asks, not looking.

“That rune. I don’t think I –“

Alec takes advantage of Clary’s distraction, swinging his staff at her. She barely manages to avoid it, but the close call seems to put her mind back on task for the moment. They spar back and forth, Alec watching Clary’s footwork and correcting her technique.

“I don’t recognize it,” Clary pants towards the end of the session. “Are you sure it’s – “

Alec sweeps her feet and Clary lands flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her.

“You’re distracted,” he snarks, suddenly irritated. “Distracted can get you killed.”

He tosses his staff back onto the rack and heads for the door, pausing in the doorway to look back at her, suddenly guilty.

“You’re getting better,” he says sincerely.

She just wheezes at him.

* * *

Alec is in the shower, scrubbing the putrid scent of demon from his skin when he notices it. A new rune has appeared on his hip. 

“What the hell?”

He studies the mark but doesn’t recognize the symbol. He scrubs at it with the washcloth, turning the skin around it pink, but the black symbol doesn’t move. It doesn’t even smear. Alec suddenly remembers the weird questions and comments from his friends, and twists his head around to look at his back. Sure enough, there’s a new, unrecognizable rune right where Jace said it was. He finds a different one on the back of his arm where Clary had pointed, and if he was a betting man, he’d bet anything that there was a strange new rune on the back of his neck too.

Alec finishes scrubbing and hops out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist. He scoops up his phone from the counter, wipes the condensation off the mirror, and snaps a couple photos of his back. When he studies them closer, Alec notices a pattern. He goes to find his boyfriend.

“Hey, Magnus?”

“Living room, dear.”

He pads out into the living room, to find his boyfriend in the middle of mixing a potion for a client. 

“Can I get you to look at something for me?”

Magnus hums and holds up a finger, indicating Alec should wait. After another minute, Magnus claps his hands in triumph and spins around, his eyes widening at Alec’s state of undress.

“What can I do for you, Alexander?” he purrs.

Alec feels his face heat up and a pleasant stirring in his belly, but ignores it for the moment.

“Do you recognize this?” he asks, pointing at the mark on his hip.

Magnus’s eyes slide sideways away from Alec.

“Should I?”

“How about these?” Alec turns to show him his back.

“Sure,” Magnus answers. “This one’s – “

Alec doesn’t let him finish and instead turns back around to face him, holding out his phone where the picture of his back is visible. Magnus wouldn’t look at the phone, but Alec figures he already knows what’s on the picture. A stylized ‘B’ on the back of Alec’s neck, an ‘A’ in similar script on the back of his arm, an ‘N’ on his lower back, and most recently, an ‘E’ spread across his hip.

“So you really have no idea why I’ve got your name disguised as runes running down my body?”

Magnus sniffs. “Well that’s odd.”

“You,” Alec laughs, stepping closer to where the warlock is still avoiding his eyes, “are a terrible liar.”

Alec loops his fingers in the belt loops of Magnus’s pants and tugs forward, until their bodies are flush.

“And here I was, thinking everyone else was going crazy.”

Magnus looks up at Alec through his eyelashes and Alec rests his forehead against the warlock’s.

“When in reality, my boyfriend was just having fun while I was sleeping each night.”

“They’re not permanent,” Magnus says finally. “Just a little marker and small spell to keep them from rubbing off for a couple weeks.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I put up with the chaos.”

“You love the chaos. I’m the freeform squiggle to your mathematically perfect square. Your life would be so tedious and predictable without me.”

“Did you just call me a square?”

Magnus shrugs. “Okay, maybe a rectangle. But one of those rectangles that’s so close to being a square you can’t tell unless you look hard enough.”

“Is that right?”

“If the box fits.”

Alec grins, his hands sliding around Magnus’s hips and grabbing his ass. He squeezes briefly, making Magnus arch into him, the warlocks fingers grabbing his biceps. They both groan.

“I’ll have you know,” the shadowhunter tells him lowly, “that I am actually _very_ flexible when I want to be.”

Magnus gives a curious groan. His pupils are dilated and Alec can feel his heart hammering in time with his own. 

“All I need is the proper motivation.”

“I think I can manage that,” Magnus murmurs, hands sliding up around Alec’s neck to pull him down for a kiss.


End file.
